Hyak Powder (sort of)

With an empty house post-holidays, Heather and I tried to make the most of the 12" of new snow we got over the past couple of days.  Unfortunately, a couple days before we got a foot or so with a freezing rain incident which created a nice breakable crust under the 12" of very dry new snow, so skiing was a little tricky especially for Heather without mega wide skis.

Heather avoiding the crust

Heather

One Great Day

Brandon, Ed, & I headed out to Kendall Peak for a tour on Monday. While hiking in, we saw a mink in a tree...

this is not our shot...stole it from http://bigoldbear.ezabu.com/ (thanks!)

Our camera was dead that day so, sadly no pics of our fun.

After making the hump in, we dug a pit and decided the avalanche conditions were too risky. A hard call to make as the upper bowl was completely fresh powder with no tracks....but probably the right one as we later saw reports of triggered slides on similar slopes.

So, we headed back into the trees and lapped the tree slopes a few times. Back out to meet up with Ed's wife Julie and another friend, Tiffany, for some lift skiing. We skied fresh stuff all evening until about 9:30pm when the freezing rain began to pelt us and turned our fluffy snow into frosting.

Ended the evening with a hottie tottie -coffee & Kahlua. A fantastic day, in my opinion.

Red Mtn

Adam and I headed up Red Mtn for a quick morning ski, Heather chose to sleep in.  We haven't had any new snow in a week, and the wind has been blowing a lot, so we didn't have high hopes.  Found variable conditions from powder, packed powder, wind affected, wind scoured, refrozen debris and breakable crust.  Good to get out on my first real tour of the season.

Tracks from yesterday on the upper face 

 Adam on the summit

First turns, careful

Better snow at base